13 Recipes Everyone Should Know How to Cook by Age 30

OK, so we're not teenagers anymore. Burnt toast and takeout pizza just won't cut it now that we're proper adults and expected to do proper adult things, like throwing dinner parties. Here's the good news: we don't need a fancy menu or the culinary skills of a Michelin star chef to cook our guests delicious food. Often, the best dishes are the simplest ones (and those Michelin star chefs would probably agree).

By the age of 30, we should all have some basic, fundamental recipes in our skill set — for ourselves, our families and those last-minute dinner guests. The key is to start with recipes we love to eat, like a really great pasta dish, an exquisite chocolate cake or a stack of buttery pancakes. We'll love them even more once we've made them ourselves. And once we've mastered those, well, the sky's the limit.